he Michelson Lecture Series, sponsored by the United States Naval United States Naval Academy Academy Class of 1969, commemorates the achievements of Albert

A. Michelson, Naval Academy graduate Class of 1873 and instructor, th Tand the first American scientist to receive a Nobel Prize. Each year since 1981, a 34 Annual Michelson Memorial Lecture distinguished scientist has come to the Naval Academy to present the Michelson Lecture. This year the Michelson Lecture is hosted by the Physics Department. The Class of 1969 is proud to sponsor this lecture by Professor and Nobel Laureate, Dr. Adam Riess, of Johns Hopkins University.

Michelson Memorial Lecturers 1981 Professor Herbert C. Brown, Nobel Laureate, Purdue University 1982 Professor Charles H. Townes, Nobel Laureate, Univ. of California, Berkeley 1983 Professor Arthur L. Schawlow, Nobel Laureate, Stanford University 1984 Honorable James M. Beggs, National Aeronautics and Space Administration 1985 Admiral Grace Hopper, United States Navy 1986 Dr. Ronald L. Graham, Bell Laboratories 1987 Dr. James A. Watson, Nobel Laureate, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 1988 Dr. Stirling A. Colgate, Los Alamos Laboratory 1989 Dr. Robert Ballard, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute 1990 Dr. Richard Hamming, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA 1991 Dr. John H. Conway, Princeton University “Supernovae Reveal An Accelerating Universe” 1992 Dr. Michael F. Shlesinger, Director of Physics, ONR 1993 Dr. Richard E. Smalley, Nobel Laureate, Rice University Dr. Adam Riess 1994 Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan, NOAA, Chief Scientist and Astronaut Thomas J. Barber Professor of Physics and Astronomy 1995 Dr. Arnold Penzias, Nobel Laureate, Bell Laboratories 1996 Dr. Aaron Hauptman, Nobel Laureate, Hauptman-Woodward Research Foundation Krieger School of Arts and Sciences 1997 Dr. Dudley R. Herschbach, Nobel Laureate, Harvard University Johns Hopkins University 1998 Dr. Leon N. Cooper, Nobel Laureate, Brown University 1999 Dr. Sylvia Earl, Deep Ocean Explorer, 1998-2002 National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, and Chairman, DOER Marine Operations, Inc. 2000 Dr. Vinton G. Cerf, Senior Vice President of Internet Technology, WorldCom 2001 Dr. David Donoho, Stanford University 2002 Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland, Nobel Laureate, University of California, Irvine 2003 Dr. William D. Phillips, Nobel Laureate, NIST & University of Maryland Mahan Hall 2004 Dr. Howard Bluestein, University of Oklahoma October 22, 2014 2005 Dr. Jeffrey Weeks, Freelance Mathematician 7:15 p.m. 2006 Dr. James J. Heckman, Nobel Laureate, University of Chicago 2007 Sir Harold W. Kroto, Nobel Laureate, Florida State University 2008 Dr. James Gates, University of Maryland 2009 Dr. Christos Papadimitriou, Univ. of California, Berkeley The Lecture is Sponsored by the USNA Class of 1969 2010 Dr. Eric J. Barron, The Florida State University 2011 Dr. Bernd Sturmfels, University of California, Berkeley 2012 Dr. Peter Diamond, Nobel Laureate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2013 Dr. Ada Yonath, Nobel Laureate, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel Dr. Adam Riess Program Thomas J. Barber Professor of Physics and Astronomy Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Prelude Johns Hopkins University U. S. Naval Academy Woodwind Quintet

dam Riess is the Thomas J. History of the Michelson Memorial Lecture Barber Professor of Physics and Andrew Phillips, Ph.D. Astronomy, Krieger-Eisenhower Academic Dean and Provost AProfessor of Physics and Astronomy at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Introduction of the Guest Speaker Hopkins University, and a distinguished Captain John O’Neill, USN astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Director, Mathematics and Science Division Institute. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Michelson Memorial Lecture He received his bachelor’s degree in Adam Riess, Ph.D. physics from the Massachusetts Institute “Supernovae Reveal An Accelerating Universe” of Technology in 1992 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1996. His research involves measurements of the cosmological framework with Question and Answer Session supernovae (exploding stars) and Cepheids (pulsating stars). Currently, Dr. Riess he leads the SHOES Team in efforts to improve the measurement of the Presentation to the Speaker Hubble Constant and the Higher-z Team to find and measure the most Midshipman 1/C Eric Swanson, USN distant type la supernovae known to probe the origin of cosmic acceleration. and In 2011, he was named a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and Major Stephen W. Comiskey, USMCR (Ret.) was awarded the Albert Einstein Medal for his leadership in the High-z President, USNA Class of 1969 Supernova Search Team’s discovery that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating, a phenomenon widely attributed to a mysterious, unexplained “dark energy” filling the universe. The discovery was named byScience magazine in 1998 as “the Breakthrough Discovery of the Year.” Abstract: In 1929 Edwin Hubble discovered that our Universe is His accomplishments have been recognized with a number of other expanding. Eighty years later, the Space Telescope that bears his name is being awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation used to study an even more surprising phenomenon: that the expansion is “Fellowship Grant” in 2008, the Gruber Foundation Cosmology Prize in speeding up. The origin of this effect is not known, but is broadly attributed to a type of “dark energy” first posited to exist by Albert Einstein and now 2007 (shared), and the Shaw Prize in Astronomy in 2006. dominating the mass-energy budget of the Universe. Professor Riess will describe how his team discovered the acceleration of the Universe and why understanding the nature of dark energy presents one of the greatest remaining challenges in astrophysics and cosmology.